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ICYMI: How do you keep two non-shooting bigs involved in the same offense? Last week, we released John Andrzejek’s Film Room on how Campbell used duck-ins against drop, high-low reads against aggressive coverage, and second-side rolls to keep the defense moving. Read the newsletter HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: Spain Ballscreen - Screening Variations​

🧪 The Practice Lab: Finding Your Touch

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Joe Crispin | Air Force

📣 NABC Convention: Register Now!​

🥇 Best of the Week: Post Offense Triggers​

🤔 Coaches Corner: Crash Five, Then Pick Up Full Court?​

Spain Ballscreen

Here at Slappin’ Glass, we love watching the game evolve. Just when an offensive concept looks too good to stop, some savvy coach finds a way to take away the advantage. Then the offense goes back to work. That push and pull is one of the things that makes basketball so much fun to study.

Spain PNR is one of our favorite examples. For years, the backscreen on the roller made it tough for defenses to stay within their usual ballscreen rules. But no advantage lasts forever. As defenses found ways to cover traditional Spain, offenses started finding new advantages within the same action.

Today, we’re looking at ways to change the screening within the Spanish ballscreen once you’re already in the action. In the same spirit as the Practice Lab, we’ll keep adding to the library throughout the season, starting with Spain and expanding to other actions. The idea is to give you a place to turn when you want a fresh look for something you already run or need a counter for the coverage you’re seeing on scout.

Pattern Recognition

When Spain PNR first became a staple, the rolling big often stood to gain the most. A backscreen at the right moment could free the roller for a layup or dunk, so taking away the roll became a priority for defenses.

Spain is still tough to guard, but the more defenses see it, the sooner they recognize what’s coming. They know when to expect the backscreen, where to meet the roller, and where the shooter usually pops. That’s something the offense can use. Keep the opening look the same and change one screen, and a defender who’s a step ahead of the usual action can end up a step behind the shooter or the roller.

Zooming In: The middle pin down is a good example. Spain starts with the same north to south look in the middle third, then the ballscreener veers into a pin down for the shooter who would normally set the backscreen.

If the shooter’s defender is used to tagging the roll and then recovering to the pop, that pin down changes what they have to navigate on the way back. It’s a small adjustment for the offense, and it takes advantage of a read the defense has learned to make.

Activating the Corners

In a lot of Spain actions, both corner players stay put, and for good reason. A corner cut can run through the space the roller needs for a lob, and a shake up from the corner can bring a defender into position to rotate onto the popping shooter. Holding the corners gives both threats room.

That spacing also gives defenses a predictable place to help from. When the corners stay put, their defenders can tag the roller more aggressively or rotate into automatic X-Outs {🔒}. So what happens when the player they’re helping off steps in to screen?

In the SG Plus Premium Newsletter, we break down two answers. The Spain Elevator brings the corner player in as a second screener to free the shooter. The Corner Flare Exit keeps the lob alive while using the corner to screen for the shooter, even with a non-shooting big in that spot. We also get into why the flare is tough to navigate against a triple switch or a guard to guard switch.

​Join SG Plus to read the full breakdown and watch all the variations on SGTV, including Spain Roll Flare and Spain RIP.

We’ll keep adding to the library throughout the season, with more Spain counters and variations on other actions you already run. When a coverage starts giving you trouble, you’ll have a place to go for something you can take into practice that week.

Finding Your Touch.

Thoughts from Drew Dunlop in building The Practice Lab

Not every workout needs to look like the game. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is give a player space to explore, experiment, and feel good about their game.

This week was a good reminder of that.

Brick

We worked with a player who was somewhat limited by an injury. He wanted to focus on finishing, particularly floaters and touch shots around the rim. We started simple. Different spots and angles inside the paint, minimal movement, and plenty of volume. Alternating strong-hand and weak-hand finishes.

Then we started layering in variability.

• Ball: Alternating between a regular basketball and a big ball every other rep.
• Start: Shooting off the catch, off the dribble, and from different positions.
• Spin: Experimenting with pushing versus snapping the wrist to manipulate rotation.
• Arc: Exploring different trajectories and release angles.
• Creativity: Encouraging him to visualize the game scenario.

Nothing overly complicated. Just a series of small adjustments that challenged him to find different ways to make the ball behave.

Takeaway

There wasn't a defender contesting at the rim. And that's okay. I've spent years advocating for representative practice, keeping perception and action coupled, and designing problems that reflect the game.

But I found myself wondering whether removing the defender actually created an opportunity. Without someone contesting, could he direct more attention toward manipulating spin, arc, release, and the feel of the ball?

Was this a worthwhile use of time? Did he actually get better?

I eventually landed somewhere interesting. Maybe those aren't the most important questions for this particular session.

The player wanted to work on his touch. He believed this would help him. And given his physical limitations, we had an opportunity to create a productive, low-load experience.

My job was to help him explore that intention, provide meaningful challenges, and sprinkle in variability where it made sense. That doesn't mean every workout should look like this. It means understanding what the player needs in that moment.

Sometimes it's a get good day. Sometimes it's a feel good day. And sometimes the value of a session is simply helping a player reconnect with confidence in their game.

Tinker

This session brought me back to a concept one of my mentors, Rob Fodor, introduced me to called creator shots. Think of these as paint pull-ups, floaters, and shots just outside the paint. Shots created in tight spaces, crowded areas, and imperfect situations.

What makes these shots interesting isn't necessarily the location. It's how players manipulate the ball and their bodies to solve the problem. Changing spin rate. Adjusting arc. Releasing earlier or later. Fading, drifting, or creating just enough separation.

We often explore these situations against multiple defenders, where the context demands those adjustments. But perhaps there's value in occasionally removing some of that complexity and allowing players to experiment with the solutions themselves.

Can we design a creator shot menu where players explore different release windows, spins, arcs, and body positions, then gradually reintroduce defensive pressure?

Not to prescribe a perfect technique, but to expand the number of solutions they can access when the game demands them. Because sometimes developing touch might start with simply giving players the freedom to work with it.

Together with Hudl

From the First Film to the Signature

Signing day starts with the first film session.

The player you’re celebrating in November? You spotted them months ago. Watched their film. Followed them through the circuits. Built the relationship.

Hudl connects that work. With Recruit+ and FastRecruit in one recruiting workflow, move from the first highlight to signing day with a clearer path to your next recruiting class.

See how Hudl connects your recruiting process. Learn more at hudl.com/slappinglass​

Subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

Slappin' Glass Podcast

🎙 Joe Crispin on Playing with Soul, Creating Unkind Defenses, and the Coach’s Role | Air Force

Air Force Head Coach Joe Crispin joined us for a conversation on helping players play with soul, confidence, and a feel for the game. We explore the practice constraints behind his fast style, how he balances freedom with shot selection, and why he lets players help reveal the concepts that fit the team. During Start, Sub, or Sit?!, we also get into creating unkind defensive environments and the coaching characteristics that shape his approach.

Seven Lessons from Joe Crispin

1. Know a player’s core before asking them to change. Crispin sees players as puzzle pieces. The edges can be adjusted so the team fits together, but the qualities that make a player effective need room to survive.
2. Teach judgment alongside confidence. Can you?, should you?, and did you mean it? are separate questions. Skill and confidence matter, but so do the teammate who is rolling, the game context, and whether a player committed to the decision.
3. Use constraints to make the desired decision obvious. Offensive advantages and short shot clocks can help hesitant players build the habit of shooting and attacking. Scoring rewards then reinforce the outcomes the team values.
4. Let players help reveal the offense. Crispin begins with pace as a priority, watches how players create advantages, and then narrows options or adds structure where needed. The team gains ownership while the coach continues to guide it.
5. Teach defense from the moments when it breaks. Starting at a disadvantage gives players experience recovering to neutral, solving rotations, and forcing a shot the defense can accept.
6. A fake trap needs a credible real trap. Uncertainty works when the offense believes pressure might actually come. Crispin also adjusts the decision to the ball handler, including leaving the ball with an opponent he wants handling it.
7. Manage the kind of game your team needs. Crispin connects scouting and in game decisions to the larger contest: pace, pressure, foul situations, and disrupting what the opponent wants most.

Listen to the full conversation here...

Together with NABC

Your next coaching adjustment could start in Detroit.

A new action. A different approach to leadership. A conversation that changes how you teach the game.

Join coaches from every level at the 2027 NABC Convention, April 1st–5th in Detroit, for five days of X&O clinics, educational sessions and opportunities to connect with peers, all alongside college basketball’s championship stage.

Come with questions. Leave with ideas for your team.

​Explore the convention and register →.

Tactical

📺 SLOB Post Trigger - Pin Away • Spain​

"Flowing the post trigger player into the stack screen off the sideline inbounds."

🔒 Pair With: RIP Screen • Grenade DHO • Veer. A well-designed post trigger to bring the entry passer back to the ball using a Veer screen after the RIP screen to Grenade DHO (Peja Action).

🔒 Pair With: Baseline Grenade DHO. A Grenade Handoff originating along the baseline and flowing toward the middle of the floor.

🔒 SG Plus Content: For another way to trigger offense through the post, see Sito Alonso’s Inverted Post Ballscreen & Uphill Pitch.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Stephen Halstead’s Post Play Efficiency Film Room. Coach Halstead breaks down how Grace College uses early seals and weakside spacing to create post touches and keep the offense moving.

Interesting Reads

📚 The Celtics Replaced a Superstar With Something Better​

The best shooters on the Celtics were beneficiaries of the vortex that Tatum and Brown created—players like Holiday, Payton Pritchard, Malcolm Brogdon, and Sam Hauser over the years. George’s arrival posits, What if Boston’s best shooter didn’t have to emerge from the fringes?

The Celtics terrorized the Sixers on Tuesday by running their defenders through a litany of screening actions involving their best marksmen, creating a recurring pick-your-poison scenario that often led to open 3s after an extra pass was made. George is attempting more than 14 3-point attempts per 100 possessions in his first 10 games as a Celtic, easily a career high, and is drilling 44 percent of them.

📚 College basketball’s rules are being rewritten in real time. Coaches are scrambling to keep up​

To be clear, college basketball is a hot mess. This is not an opinion. Months after Lane Kiffin threatened near-anarchy by attempting to use the court system to run an end-around the eligibility rules, college hoops is effectively saying, “Hold my beer.”

There are currently 54 players competing in the SEC, Big Ten, Big East, ACC and Big 12 thanks to temporary restraining orders that granted them relief to play an additional fifth year. Another 15 others have not been cleared despite similar attempts. The court systems have made such a mockery of roster construction that Sports Illustrated went so far as to create a tracker showing who can and cannot play and how each case was decided.

📚 These Seven Emotions Aren't Deadly — They're Your Secret Career Superpowers​

“I love Adam Grant’s tactic for interviewees to learn about an organization’s culture: A job candidate can ask, ‘Tell me a story about something that would only happen here,’” she says. “It’s a neat trick for candidates, but when you’re a manager, and by consequence an arbiter of the company’s culture, you should be asking yourself that, too. What’s that story for your company? Does it involve people feeling included and heard? Think about what those potential answers signal about your startup’s culture of belonging.”

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, Eric, and Drew

info@slappinglass.com